The agricultural lending market in Africa is grossly inefficient. Aceli Africa mobilizes capital for agricultural small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to unlock the growth - and impact - needed to improve livelihoods for farmers and workers across Africa. Aceli tunes up the SMEs with technical support, then provides impact-based subsidies to lenders (both local and global finance institutions) to incentivize more investment in “riskier” enterprises. As the market becomes more efficient, they adjust their financial incentives to lenders.

Brian has deep experience in agriculture finance. For over a decade he served as the Chief Innovation Officer at Root Capital - an impact lender serving agricultural SMEs in Africa. He went on to co-found and direct the Council on Smallholder Agricultural Finance (CSAF) - an alliance of 12 social lenders that collectively deploy $700 million in credit annually to the agricultural "missing middle.” He has an MBA from Harvard.